In describing and accounting for the lives of the Religious Right, which we define simply as religious conservatives with a considerable involvement in political activity, the book and the series tell the story primarily by focusing on leading episodes in the movement's history, including, but not limited to, the groundwork laid by Billy Graham in his relationships with presidents and other prominent political
leaders; the resistance of evangelical and other Protestants to the candidacy of the Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy; the rise of what has been called the New Right out of the ashes of Barry Goldwater's defeat in 1964; a battle
over sex education in Anaheim, California, in the mid-1960's; a prolonged cultural war
over textbooks in West Virginia in the early 1970's — and that is a battle that has been fought less violently in community after community all
over the country; the thrill conservative Christians felt
over the election of a «born - again» Christian to the Presidency in 1976 and the subsequent disappointment they experienced when they found out that Jimmy Carter was, of all things, a Democrat; the rise of the Moral Majority and its infatuation with Ronald Reagan; the difficulty the Religious Right has had in dealing with abortion,
homosexuality and AIDS; Pat Robertson's bid for the presidency and his subsequent launching of the Christian Coalition; efforts by Dr. James Dobson and Gary Bauer to win a «civil war of values» by changing the culture at a deeper level than is represented by winning elections; and, finally, by addressing crucial questions about the appropriate relationship between religion and politics or, as we usually put it, between church and state.
Carl Paladino angered a lot of people
over the weekend when he told a group of Orthodox Jewish
leaders that he worries about children being, «brainwashed into thinking that
homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option.»